14 Ways to Reduce Joint Pain With Diabetes

Diabetes can damage joints, making life and movement much harder. How does this happen, and what can we do about it? A lot.

“Without properly functioning joints, our bodies would be unable to bend, flex, or even move,” says Sheri Colberg, PhD, author of The Diabetic Athlete, The 7 Step Diabetes Fitness Plan, and other books.

Advertisement

Joint pain is often called “arthritis.” “A joint is wherever two bones come together,” Colberg writes. The bones are held in place by ligaments, which attach bones to each other, and by tendons, which attach bones to the muscles that move them.

The ends of the bones are padded with cartilage, a whitish gel made from collagen, proteins, fiber, and water. Cartilage allows bones to move on each other without being damaged.

Joint cartilage can be damaged by injuries or by wear and tear with hard use. “Aging alone can lead to some loss of [the] cartilage layer in knee, hip, and other joints,” says Colberg “but having diabetes potentially speeds up damage to joint surfaces.”

Sometimes extra glucose sticks to the surfaces of joints, gumming up their movement. This stickiness interferes with movement and leads to wear-and-tear injury.

High glucose levels also thicken and degrade the collagen itself. This is bad because tendons and ligaments are also largely made from collagen.

Reduced flexibility of joints leads to stiffness, greater risk of physical injury, and falls. People with joint damage may reduce their physical activity due to discomfort and fear of falling. Reduced activity promotes heart disease and insulin resistance.

Here are 14 things we can do to prevent and treat joint problems and to keep moving.

• Stretching keeps muscles and tendons relaxed and aligned so they’ll move as needed. You might want to ask a physical therapist or a trainer what stretches to do or look at sites like these.

• Do resistance training to strengthen muscles around the joints. Again, you might want to get some advice, because too much of the wrong exercise can be harmful. You want to build up slowly.

• Aerobic exercise like walking or swimming usually improves hip and knee function. Water exercise classes are great for most people with painful joints, because the water carries some of the weight. Bike riding has almost no impact, so it can be done when joints hurt.

• Vary your activities. Do a mix of physical things. For instance, if you’re hanging clothes, stop before the pain comes and do something else or rest, then come back to it. Avoid repetitive, high-impact exercises like running, jumping, tennis, and high-impact aerobics, according to the Mayo Clinic.

• Improving glucose control will keep your joints from getting sugar-coated and stiff.

According to Mahsa Tehrani, MD, methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) has been shown in studies to reduce joint-related pain and disability. She also reports that ginger extract helps both pain and stiffness.

Topical agents such as creams containing capsaicin are known to reduce pain.

• Supportive devices can help. The Foot & Ankle Center of Washington recommends braces for arthritic knees, supportive shoes, and orthotics to put in shoes to support the foot and limit rolling. Other devices are available for painful hand joints.

I know that’s a lot to think about, on top of everything diabetes requires. But moving your body is key to managing diabetes, and joint pain limits movement. And movement can be a source of pleasure and take you to other pleasures. Take care of your joints, and they’ll take care of you.

***I’m leading a webinar on sex and kidney disease, which is quite a similar topic to sex and diabetes. It’s Thursday, March 23, at 4 PM ET. It’s free and will cover issues that most people don’t talk about. You can read about it and sign up for it at http://www.dpcedcenter.org/march.

Disclaimer of Medical Advice: You understand that the blog posts and comments to such blog posts (whether posted by us, our agents or bloggers, or by users) do not constitute medical advice or recommendation of any kind, and you should not rely on any information contained in such posts or comments to replace consultations with your qualified health care professionals to meet your individual needs. The opinions and other information contained in the blog posts and comments do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Site Proprietor.

All comments are moderated and there may be a delay in the publication of your comment. Please be on-topic and appropriate. Do not disclose personal information. Be respectful of other posters. Only post information that is correct and true to your knowledge. When referencing information that is not based on personal experience, please provide links to your sources. All commenters are considered to be nonmedical professionals unless explicitly stated otherwise. Promotion of your own or someone else's business or competing site is not allowed: Sharing links to sites that are relevant to the topic at hand is permitted, but advertising is not. Once submitted, comments cannot be modified or deleted by their authors. Comments that don't follow the guidelines above may be deleted without warning. Such actions are at the sole discretion of DiabetesSelfManagement.com. Comments are moderated Monday through Friday by the editors of DiabetesSelfManagement.com. The moderators are employees of Madavor Media, LLC and do not report any conflicts of interest. A privacy policy setting forth our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of certain information relating to you and your use of this Web site can be found here. For more information, please read our Terms and Conditions